That was all. Gertrude went into town with her and saw her safely home. She reported a decided coolness in the greeting between Louise and her mother, and that Doctor Walker was there, apparently in charge of the arrangements for the funeral. Halsey disappeared shortly after Louise left and came home about nine that night, muddy and tired. As for Thomas, he went around dejected and sad, and I saw the detective watching him closely at dinner. Even now I wonder—what did Thomas know? What did he suspect? At ten o’clock the household had settled down for the night. Liddy, who was taking Mrs. Watson’s place, had finished examining the tea-towels and the corners of the shelves in the cooling-room, and had gone to bed. Alex, the gardener, had gone heavily up the circular staircase to his room, and Mr. Jamieson was examining the locks of the windows. Halsey dropped into a chair in the living-room, and stared moodily ahead. Once he roused. “What sort of a looking chap is that Walker, Gertrude?” he asked! “Rather tall, very dark, smooth-shaven. Not bad looking,” Gertrude said, putting down the book she had been pretending to read. Halsey kicked a taboret viciously. “Lovely place this village must be in the winter,” he said irrelevantly. “A girl would be buried alive here.” It was then some one rapped at the knocker on the heavy front door. Halsey got up leisurely and opened it, admitting Warner. He was out of breath from running, and he looked half abashed. “I am sorry to disturb you,” he said. “But I didn’t know what else to do. It’s about Thomas.” “What about Thomas?” I asked. Mr. Jamieson had come into the hall and we all stared at Warner. “He’s acting queer,” Warner explained. “He’s sitting down there on the edge of the porch, and he says he has seen a ghost. The old man looks bad, too; he can scarcely speak.” “He’s as full of superstition as an egg is of meat,” I said. “Halsey, bring some whisky and we will all go down.” No one moved to get the whisky, from which I judged there were three pocket flasks ready for emergency. Gertrude threw a shawl around my shoulders, and we all started down over the hill: I had made so many nocturnal excursions around the place that I knew my way perfectly. But Thomas was not on the veranda, nor was he inside the house. The men exchanged significant glances, and Warner got a lantern. “He can’t have gone far,” he said. “He was trembling so that he couldn’t stand, when I left.” Jamieson and Halsey together made the round of the lodge, occasionally calling the old man by name. But there was no response. No Thomas came, bowing and showing his white teeth through the darkness. I began to be vaguely uneasy, for the first time. Gertrude, who was never nervous in the dark, went alone down the drive to the gate, and stood there, looking along the yellowish line of the road, while I waited on the tiny veranda.